The Dance of Free Speech & Political Correctness

Lately I have found myself going down the YouTube rabbit hole. I find myself attracted to videos that deal with social issues such as Political Correctness and free speech. Being "PC" can be both good and bad. It’s good when “being PC” means that you don’t use racist, bigoted, homophobic, blah, blah, words in public. Thus offending probably most of the people around you.

it becomes a problem when “being PC” stifles the expression of a different opinion. This is commonly seen on the college campuses located on the east and west coasts. Many conservatives have been shouted down, intimidated, threatened with outright violence and have their venues blocked so that people could not enter them. All done by students who felt that the opinion of the speaker (which was diametrically different from their own) was going to say things that were opposed to their views, thus offending them.

Christina Hoff Sommers, Bret Weinstein, Heather Heying, Peter Boghossian, and Dave Rubin to a name few have come under assault for a different opinion. None of the above are anywhere near racist, bigoted, misogynistic, or homophobic. Their collective sin continues to be that they have a different opinion regarding the First Amendment. They believe that college students and people in general should be able to hear different sides of an argument presented to them so that the people can make an intelligent, rational decision as to what to believe on a given topic.

Unfortunately, many of them have been shouted down, removed from campus through threats of violence and intimidation, and lost their jobs because their opinions were judged as “hate speech.” I won’t even get into Drs. Erika and Nicholas Christakis and their exploits at Yale; or Harvard law professor Ronald Sullivan.

Finally, according to Dr. Jonathan Haidt a sociologist from NYU, who wrote in his latest book with Greg Lukianoff, “The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas Are Setting Up a Generation for Failure,” that many of his colleagues have changed the way that they teach their classes. They have stopped challenging students, they have stopped being “edgy” because as Haidt and Lukianoff state, teachers have to teach to the the most sensitive and offendable student in class. Because it would be that student who would report a professor for questionable teaching methods and content.